Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Georgian monks began to settle on Mt. Athos in the middle of the 10th
century, and a Georgian monastery, Iveron, was founded there not long
after.

At that time foreign armies were constantly invading Mt.
Athos. In the 13th century the Crusaders stormed through the region, and
between 1259 and 1306 the pope’s private army devastated Mt. Athos
several times. Monks of Zographou and Vatopedi monasteries and the
Protaton were martyred for the Orthodox Faith, and the monks of the
Iveron Monastery eventually met the same fate.

During this period
Georgian and Greek ascetics labored together at the Iveron Monastery,
and many young ascetics of the new generation began to arrive from
Georgia.

The Crusaders demanded that the Iveron monks convert to
Catholicism and acknowledge the primacy of the Roman pope. But the monks
condemned their fallacies and anathematized the doctrine of the
Catholics.

According to the Patericon of Athos, the Iveron monks
were forcibly expelled from their monastery. Nearly two hundred elderly
monks were goaded like animals onto a ship that was subsequently sunk in
the depths of the sea. The younger, healthier monks were deported to
Italy and sold as slaves to the Jews.

Some sources claim this
tragedy took place in the year 1259, while others record that the
Georgian monks of the Holy Mountain were subject to the Latin
persecutions over the course of four years, from 1276 to 1280.